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‘Let’s Make The Mall Great Again’: Bill Maher Talks About How Online Shopping is Destroying the Environment

Bill Maher did something different with his “New Rules” segment recently and used that time to talk about how online shopping is destroying the environment. He says that people should stop relying so much on online shopping as it is damaging the environment and increasing isolation within communities.

Source: Real Time with Bill Maher/Youtube

“Let’s make the mall great again,” Maher says. He spoke about how the mall was often called America’s Town Hall. He points out that marketplaces have always been the center of societies.

“Yes, ours was a little tacky, but it was better than this,” Maher says as he points to a picture of a huge pile of empty cardboard boxes.

However, now in the day and age of Amazon and other quick delivery services, Americans primarily shop in one of the more inefficient ways possible.

“Turns out ordering online is way more eco-unfriendly than driving to the store ever was. How could it not be, considering that Americans now shop by the most inefficient means humanly possible: Since we can’t get off our ass and see how something feels, we order nine, and send back 8,” he said.

He’s not wrong, and Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world now. Amazon first offered Prime delivery in 2005 and has attracted millions of subscribers for the free delivery in less than 48 hours. During the pandemic, Amazon’s 200 million Prime subscribers were ordering more than the company had ever seen before. In the first three months of 2021, Amazon sales grew 44 percent, leading to an 8.1 billion dollar profit.

Amazon sold 44 percent more items during the pandemic, The Guardian reported, but the cost to fulfill the orders only increased by 31 percent. This is because the order volume was so high they were able to operate their warehouses more efficiently.

Quick delivery services like Amazon’s Prime is what many people relied on for groceries and other necessities during the pandemic. Now, as life is returning to normal, many are likely to stick with the quick delivery service. This puts a huge strain on the environment. Amazon Prime ships 1.6 million packages every day. While some people only use delivery services like this for necessities or groceries, many use fast delivery for things they don’t need quickly or at all for that matter.

Often customers going to order a product from Amazon will order much more than just one product because the one-day shipping incentivizes more purchases. This means more fuel being used in the vehicles, more packaging, and more strain on the workers. It’s important to think about if we truly need the item we are purchasing and if we need that product as soon as possible. Conscious purchasing is the name of the game, and the choices we make have a much bigger impact than we often think.

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